Self-standing evidence is the opposite of ArgumentFromAuthority. Such evidence is self-contained and does not require or assume other sources except maybe a basic domain dictionary. Although impossible to reach fully in practice, some believe it is a golden goal to strive for on wiki.

Actually, this is yet another fallacy (a variant on ScienceShouldBeEasy fallacy) in support of one TopMind trolling his way through wiki. Arguments appeal to a certain common background body of knowledge, which Top typically denies or refuses to educate himself about (complains about BookStop as if ignorance should be praised and reading should be discouraged), and in the absence of that body of knowledge constructing such "self-standing" argument is monstrously uneconomical, and disingenuous on the part of those who ask for it, and simply should be disregarded.

CommonSenseIsAnIllusion, and most of the referenced books are not science. They may be "math" in that they show some techniques using their root idioms, but that alone does not make them science. See PageAnchor "Difference Between Math And Science" under MisuseOfMath. In other words, many of those books create a math, and then run off with the mouth using that math. They more or less say, "Here are some axioms, and a bunch of nifty tricks that can be done with these axioms." But that alone does not ground it in reality. Math is easy compared to science, and that is the big problem of computer "science". I like relational theory and find it useful, but don't claim it to be science.

Famously, "Mathematics is the queen of the sciences"

Math represents the models, and science tests models. But being a model by itself does not make any guarantees about connections with reality. Math can make up models that have little or nothing to do with reality (the physical world), for example. -- top

Reality <---------Science---------> Models (math)

But there is nothing whatsoever that guarantees connections with reality, as was pointed out thousands of years ago, e.g. with Plato's Cave. Math/science/engineering are nonetheless as good as it gets.

The models don't have to be the final answer, only predict what we observe. Science is the attempt to connect models to reality. Life may be an illusion, but we still want tools that help us at least predict the nature of the illusions.

In the past, the only people who considered mathematics to be science were the original Platonists millennia ago who thought that geometric forms were the basis of reality (ie, that the atoms of the physical universe were the cube, the tetrahedron, the octahedron, and so on). Nobody has considered mathematics to be science since then.

Except for a very recent development in mathematics where mathematical facts have begun to be investigated in a purely empirical manner. Due to the difficulty of establishing many kinds of seemingly obvious yet impossible to prove facts, some mathematicians have set aside the traditional standard of proof required in mathematics and have downgraded the status of mathematics to a science.

Regardless of this, nobody who's made even a casual study of science and mathematics would doubt that mathematics and science are radically different things. If one persists in conflating them, then the best that can be said is that mathematics is the set of all conceivable formal sciences, and that science is the subset of informal mathematics relating to the particular reality we inhabit.

Well-stated (except maybe for the informal part). Science is essentially a filter against all possible models to narrow them down to those that best fit reality. (Another way to view this is that science is a ranking process that ranks all possible models based on how well they fit/predict reality.

{Note that this does not contradict anything I've stated. The problem with software is that it offers almost infinite models with no requirement to fit reality except for the output. This leaves a hell of a lot of wiggle-room, which is fodder for internal design debates. Few other disciplines, except the arts, face such a large area of wiggle-room. --top}

{And, the field of software development is not currently "science". -t}

Science studies the physical and natural world. Computer worlds are not directly physical or natural, they are virtual worlds. The term "computer science" is a big mistake because computer science should deal with the science of the CPU and circuit boards that run a computer. Possibly "programming" should be the term to describe programming, instead of "computer science". Math doesn't study the natural or physical world either (MathVsScience), and there is still rigor in math - so I believe programming can still contain rigor just as math can contain rigor. Since some of programming involves numbers and calculation, programming logically "contains" math in it. Programming is not math, it contains math. Since it contains math, we can apply the rigor of math to some of our programming. If for example you want to add two numbers in a programming language, that programming language has to implement math properly for those two numbers to be added. People who don't understand that programming contains math in it are in serious danger because they think they can reject math rigor and basically make programming into an "anything goes" EverythingIsRelativeBlackArt.

Often you resort to cop outs like Everything is Relative or everything is tied to psychology. You've rejected at times that types need to even exist in useful programming languages - yet math has had types for eons and no one in math rejects types. You seem to defend relational, but actually you are defending bagatational with bags, not sets. You're math is a bit skewed - you need to be precise - what are you defending? You can't call yourself a relational wheenie if you defend bags and not sets... There's just too much inconsistency and imprecision when it comes to what you stand for. Sometimes you stand for math, other times you say that it's all just psychological anyway so there is really no objective truths to anything and it is all in the mind. Other times you demand people give you science and empirical evidence - but why is that needed if it's all just psychology anyway?

Too many concepts tossed into one big salad here. As far as types, without a precise and agreed-upon definition, I cannot really answer that question and won't attempt to on this page. I think you are getting too caught up in vocab on things like relational. "Bag" relational is generally not different enough from non-bag relational in practice to make a huge deal about. If you want me to use "bagational", that may be okay, except newbie readers will scratch their head. Most existing RDBMS are also really "bagational", but it's a little too late to change accepted vocab for them. Actual usage defines terms more than anything. -t

And I don't say there is "no objective truth" about programming, only that you guys haven't presented any so far (at least as far as utility). I suspect most or all of it is indeed just WetWare, but am open to the possibility that some of it may be absolute. But until I see the unicorn with my own eyes, I shall remain skeptical of unicorns. -t
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